If you don't I think a lot of people will lose interest in this project

Why would anybody lose interest in this Project ? It's a set & forget Project, if people don't run this project it's their loss of free credit. Even if you don't have a specific goal of how to improve your Badge as long as your attached to the project you eventually just might stumble into improving what you have.
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WUProp became a badge project. When you stop getting badges its effectively no longer a badge project.

It's a set & forget Project, if people don't run this project it's their loss of free credit.

Like any other Boinc project, you have to add it (unless you are using an account manager, and even then you sort of do), and there is always the risk it could crash Boinc or your system somehow.
28 credits/day is not the reason we are here. We can get plenty of credits at Bitcoin Utopia (5M/day on a USB stick)!

Even if you don't have a specific goal of how to improve your Badge as long as your attached to the project you eventually just might stumble into improving what you have.

You might, but the possibility becomes exponentially less each time that happens. When it gets to the point that you are not going to reach the next level in many years, it's basically not going to happen - what's the life expectancy of an app?
When you reach the point that you have no badge goals then for you it's no longer a badge project and is merely what it was to begin with, a stats project, which had low head count.

One of the better aspects to this project is that it highlights new projects and apps. This benefits those new projects and research as a whole, and keeps us interested. However, once you reach 5stars the Badge aspect of this project doesn't recognise you for work performed at new projects. So there is less incentive to join or communicate their existence.

One of the better aspects to this project is that it highlights new projects and apps. This benefits those new projects and research as a whole..

There's another side to that: it's detrimental to established projects (who are also doing research.)

It's good that it encourages people to try new projects. For existing projects, however, it's discouraging to see people leave so they can run a multitude of projects just to get a wuprop badge.

It also has the effect of artificially encouraging project admins to run more apps on their project because it makes it more attractive to wuprop badge chasers.

This is only my opinion, but I both run wuprop on my computers as well as administering a rather large boinc project. And, yes, I went out and ran some projects other than my own, just to get a wuprop badge. :) On the research level, I like what wuprop does by collecting data on the characteristics of all the boinc apps out there.

WUProp became a badge project. When you stop getting badges its effectively no longer a badge project

If your not getting any new Badges here at Wuprop it's your fault/problem & not the Project's, try harder is all I can say & don't rely on the Project to come down to you just so you can get another Badge ... ;)

I find it disappointing that over the years the BOINC community has become increasingly infested with credit whores and badge fetishists. Whatever happened to the desire to assist scientific research?

They're definitely still there. But for the people running the projects, who are trying to get the research done, the "credit whores" are a blessing. An awful lot of science is accomplished in the pursuit of the almighty credit. That's a good thing, in my opinion.